


ninety-two days and counting

by aelysian



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F, Gen, Martine dies like the punk ass bitch she is, exorcising post-episode feelings, family means no one gets left behind, murder-in-laws, or forgotten, wrecking crew - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-08
Updated: 2015-02-08
Packaged: 2018-03-11 01:13:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3310367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aelysian/pseuds/aelysian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Her selfishness is the one part of her humanity that she learned to accept a long time ago for the sake of self-preservation and embraced because there wasn't anyone to be selfless for. Even now, she burns her selfishness for strength: she would have given herself to avoid losing Shaw because the raw pain she left in her wake is too much for Root to swallow. </i>
</p><p>  <i>(She wonders if that is even true, if she's even capable of self-sacrifice because if she were, wouldn't she have done it?)</i></p><p>Post-MIA.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ninety-two days and counting

**Author's Note:**

> This is exceptionally pointless because apparently I am suckered into this show enough to be writing post-ep fic.
> 
> For twit and Rain, because I fear their wrath if I post POI fic without giving it to them.

It occurs to her that maybe she's just meant to lose everyone she cares about, that it's some kind of punishment for being what she is; a virus, a bad penny, (a monster). She corrupts everything she touches.

They're selfish thoughts because it has never really been about her - her father left because he was a deadbeat, her mother died because the cancer was slow but relentless, Hanna was taken, and Sameen was never going to let anyone decide her fate for her.

Her selfishness is the one part of her humanity that she learned to accept a long time ago for the sake of self-preservation and embraced because there wasn't anyone to be selfless for. Even now, she burns her selfishness for strength: she would have given herself to avoid losing Shaw because the raw pain she left in her wake is too much for Root to swallow.

(She wonders if that is even true, if she's even capable of self-sacrifice because if she were, wouldn't she have done it?)

It won't really matter, not if they find her, because neither of them have any illusions about the kind of person Root is. And if they don't, it'll matter even less because she won't be the same at all.

 

* * *

 

Reese takes the driver's seat because Root doesn’t seem to realize that she’s shaking until she drops her weapons on the truck floor and shoves her hands between her knees. He puts as much distance between them and Maple as fast as he can and doesn’t bother trying to convince himself it’s because there’s a traumatized woman asleep in the backseat.

Finch calls – the ringing makes Root flinch and he silences the phone without looking. He let her kill (and maim and kidnap and threaten) today and neither of them are up to a lecture right now because he’d let her do it all over again.

“You don’t have to ignore him for me.”

“I’m not.”

He and Root have never been friends, and probably never will be. They will never like each other enough for that word to apply, but he does understand enough about where she is to respect what she’s doing. He’ll miss Shaw, in the days to come, when there has been time enough for it to settle into his mind, but John has lost before and he’s getting a little more numb to it every time.

The woman sitting next to him is another story. He’s never really known what to make of her, under all that sardonic brilliance and flirtatious deceit, never really understood what it was that seemed to resonate with Shaw so surreptitiously, so artfully that he doesn’t think either of them really saw it coming.

She seems so young, sitting in the passenger seat, trying to hold all of her pieces together like a broken china doll. A naïve murderer and he wonders, not for the first time, if they somehow deserve this.

 

* * *

 

He’s watching from the subway station, directing Finch to the right intersection, which means he’s watching her pray to her god and he’s seeing what it sees and he can’t help but wonder if it understands the desperation carved into her face.

Finch fails, of course, and his earpiece provides the audio. He knew that he would, just as he knew there was no point in stopping him from trying. There are no points for effort, but he’s not sure that Harold has learned that lesson yet.

Bear nudges his knee and _whuffs_ softly.

“I know.”

 

* * *

 

There was a time when she thought Her silence was a burden, necessary but heavy to carry. She remembers what she thought during those long months, what she did, what she said to empty air without expecting an answer. She remembers what she felt, all of those emotions that feel distant and strange to her now just in the recalling.

She can’t remember quite how it felt to want to hear Her speak.

The thing about her cochlear implant, that she knows Shaw would have noticed and Harold has never commented on, is that she never had the external receiver installed. Without the Machine, her right ear is completely silent and if she still feels slightly off-balance, it’s worth it for the hateful quiet.

Root hasn’t been helpless in twenty years and she is not without her own abilities. She infiltrates the Carrow databases as a malicious worm tracing back to a competing manufacturer, just before the plug is pulled - just because it wasn't Sameen doesn't mean it won't be.

(It's unexpected, but oh so welcome when she spies a familiar blonde agent and maybe the universe does work in mysterious ways.  She's never been much of a sharpshooter, but efficiency isn't always everything.)

She takes out two smaller plants and if it doesn't bring her any closer to finding her, doesn't really put much of a dent in whatever Samaritan's plans are, surveying the destruction is the closest to okay she's felt in weeks.

There are never any survivors, and it’s a matter of time before either ASI makes a move.

 

* * *

 

Reese finds her sneaking around the perimeter of a facility in Virginia with just one backup clip and a brick of C4 – she doesn’t look surprised to see him even though he suspects she isn’t talking to the Machine.

“You’re going to get yourself killed.”

“Well hello to you too.”

Root is dropping her left shoulder and he can only guess at what damage she’s done since she left. She looks like shit. “Are you going to help or not?”

He wants to say no, knows that he should be trying to convince her to stop, to come back to New York. But there’s anger and pain and trust in her features and he remembers the arsenal he packed in the trunk before heading out.

“Yeah, Root. Okay."

 

* * *

 

He doesn’t condone what she’s doing, exactly, but he doesn’t condemn it either – he settles somewhere in the middle with a non-committal hum every time Finch brings it up, and if he’s going through stock faster than usual, if he’s going off the grid for a day or two every few weeks…well, Harold doesn’t say anything.

Fusco claps him on the shoulder and tells him to watch himself out there because he doesn’t feel like breaking in a new partner.

They need to survive but he’s not sure that Root is even managing that. A text from an unknown number sends him out in the middle of the night and he finds her wandering the streets not far from Shaw’s apartment, unarmed and half-drunk.

She glares up at him from the curb and really, he’s just fucking relieved that she isn’t crying instead. “What are you doing here, Reese?”

“Could ask you the same question.”

Root seems to curl into herself; she’s suddenly something small and fragile wrapped up in denim and leather. “I tried to go to her place. I just wanted to see,” she says, looking at him like she expects him to understand.

“Hm.” He takes a step back and away, shoving his hands in his coat pockets. “Come on.”

It takes her a few seconds to realize he’s moving, to clamber to her feet clumsily. His strides are longer than hers and faster; she stumbles after him, too tired and too intoxicated to do anything else until she follows him into a building, up stairs, down a hall until she’s at her door.

Reese has already picked the lock, but he lets her linger with her hand on the knob, waits patiently for her to slip inside. When he sees the dim glow of a light turned on, he follows.

He’s never been inside Shaw’s apartment before, not this one anyway, and it’s every bit as sparse as he expected – as featureless and unremarkable as his own.

Root stands with her back to him in the middle of the studio apartment, her arms wrapped around herself.

“Root?”

She doesn’t turn. “Thank you, John.”

When he returns the next morning – just to see – Root is gone and with her, all of Shaw’s belongings. He doesn’t bother to lock the door behind himself.

 

* * *

 

It's inevitable, really. Arson and aiming at something other than kneecaps would get old eventually, and it's a wonder that she got bored before Samaritan put more effort into getting rid of her. She hasn't made it hard and she sometimes wonders what's taking it so long.

(Root has gotten really good at ignoring ringing phones. Almost as good as she is at putting holes in people.)

She's hand-delivering a parcel to D.C., to the offices of the woman she knows as Control, when she's yanked into a shadowed alcove not ten steps away from her destination. The tip of her backup syringe is uncapped and just shy of breaking skin.

"Root."

The tension leaves her body and she can feel the sneer on her face. "Reese. Did he send you here to stop me?"

"No." John has a poker face to end all poker faces but she believes him anyway, because she wants to.

"Good. Now get out of my way."

His grip on her wrist is enormous and unyielding. "We've already done this. She doesn't know anything."

"Maybe. Maybe not. But she has access to Samaritan."  There's the quiet _tchik_ of a knife opening and he recognizes it as one of his own. "And I've been learning all kinds of new things."

She won't hurt him (he thinks) and he doesn't loosen his hold. "What are you going to do? Stab it to death?"

Root looks at him like he's an idiot and it's been so long since he's seen the expression on her face that he can convince himself that it hasn't changed. "I'm going to ask it a few questions."

"There are ISA agents all over this place. You're going to get yourself killed before you even get close," he says, and the déjà vu is overwhelming.

"I don't _care_ ," she bites off, twisting away from him. He almost lets her go, because she's a grown woman if a crazy one, but he has more in common with her now than he ever has before and he isn't going to lose someone else now, even if that someone is Root.

Tasers aren't his weapon of choice, but they _are_ effective, he'll give her that.

 

* * *

  

Her left arm is numb from being cuffed to an armrest above her head and it takes her longer than she'd like to admit to realize that the world looks odd because she's lying on a bench. Apparently the electric shock therapy addled her already exhausted brain because she nearly wrenches her shoulder when she sits up suddenly and the handcuffs hold fast.

"Hello, Ms. Groves."

She knows that he expects some dry remark about keeping her prisoner, maybe a witty little reference to her cage at the library, and she has them all on the tip of her tongue, ready to take flight like little darts, little barbs that are what they've come to expect from her. "Let me go, Harold."

"I'm afraid I can't do that."

"And why is that? You don't need anything from me, and I don't want anything to do with you."

He's started using a cane again, and she hates herself for even noticing. "This has to stop. You have to stop. This recklessness, the blatant disregard for your own safety, the lives of others -"

She laughs, and it echoes off the subway walls and down into the tunnels. "You had John abduct me because I've been _killing_ Decima agents? Did you forget what I used to do for a living, Harry? What your precious Reese did?"

"They weren't all Decima agents, Ms. Groves. And we do not take human lives."

The thing she used to admire about Harold was that he never flinched when he held her gaze, no matter what she said or did; it's still true now but all she can feel is disgust. "Maybe if we did, she would still be here."

Harold leans more heavily into his crutch and tries to keep his voice from faltering. "If Sameen were here, I think she would want you to stop this. Before you lose yourself."

She stares at him, intent and scrutinizing. "You've been talking to her. The Machine."

To lie now would be a sin and he already has so many marks on his conscience. "Yes."

Her smile is cruel and heartbreaking. "You deserve each other."

"Samantha," he says, like he's trying to connect with the human in her, like he doesn't know that _Samantha_ is dead. He should know better than to try such an elementary tactic with her; they're the same kind of monster.

There was a time when she thought Harold Finch was the only one who would understand her, that out of the absolute mess that they call humanity, he was one of the very few who saw the world for what it was, saw people for what they were. She was wrong, because out of this dysfunctional little group, he's the only one still lying to himself.

"Go away, Harold."

 

* * *

 

She doesn't have to break out; she wakes up in the middle of the night to the scrape of a turning key and the click of a released catch. Reese looms over her, tall and grim and cloaked in damp wool. Bear swipes at her forehead with his tongue before she can sit up and the absurdity of it makes laughter bubble up in her throat. Root stifles it; it is madness encroaching on her, she cannot break now.

"Feel like a drink?"

 

“I was forty-six people after Samaritan came online.” She runs her finger along the rim of her glass. “And now I’ve been myself for ninety-two days.”

He lets her talk, has been letting her talk for half an hour now because maybe that's what she needs, without the Machine and without Shaw. Maybe it's just the booze.

"Except I don't know who that is anymore."

"You're Root," he says simply. "With or without her, you can't ever really be anything else."

She doesn't know if he's talking about the Machine or if he means Sameen, but there's a speck of truth in there that burrows its way into the core of her. It sits like a shard of glass next to her human heart and she can't dislodge it without cutting herself open. It feels like she's bleeding.

"I'm so _angry_ ," she says like a confession. "I'm so angry all of the time."

"So be angry. Just don't throw away what she gave you." He stands and tucks a few bills under his glass that should cover them both unless she stays.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do." John sighs, because he really doesn't remember signing up for this. Family is a pain in the ass; he takes her by the shoulders, hard enough to focus all of her pieces on him.

"You stay alive. And when you're ready, you come home."

 

It could be hours later, maybe days or even weeks.

She finds a lonely street corner and looks up.

"I'm lost."

A phone rings.


End file.
